


Falling in Trust

by coffeeinallcaps



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Derek Needs To Use His Words, M/M, Pack Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 09:50:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/734316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeinallcaps/pseuds/coffeeinallcaps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles tends to run late in the mornings, forgets to use styling gel more often than not, so usually his hair looks like he’s just rolled out of bed and scratched at it sleepily before yawning his way to the nearest coffee machine. He manages to maintain this look all day long because he won’t stop running his hands through his hair when he’s thinking – both hands at the same time, if Derek’s unlucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling in Trust

“We’re doing trust falls today,” Derek says, and Stiles goes, “Nope.”

The fact that there’s objection to his plan in itself is not a surprise. All Derek’s plans, it seems, are destined to meet resistance, either from the pack or from the universe on a whole. It’s the fact that resistance is currently coming from Stiles – Stiles, who might challenge Derek’s ideas verbally but never opposes them outright, who always barges straight to the frontline of pack operations, even the slightly more insane ones (then again, that thing with the fairies had _totally been Scott’s fault_ , Derek had barely had anything to do with it), always thrumming with the desire to undertake action, to help – that makes Derek’s train of thought splutter to a confused halt. He frowns, blinks. Everyone is looking at him expectantly. Derek straightens his back and turns to Stiles. “What did you just say?” he asks, raising both eyebrows for added intimidation effect.

It works. Stiles crosses his arms, uncomfortably shifts his weight onto his other foot. “Trust falls are not really my thing,” he mumbles at the floor.

Next to him, Scott rolls his eyes so hard his entire body moves with it. “I dropped you _one time_ ,” he says, exasperated. “One time!”

“Yeah, and I still have the scar to show for it,” Stiles says bitterly, touching the back of his head. “Look, here, I’m pretty sure you can see—”

“All right,” Derek says, and sharply raises a hand to put a stop to this. Stiles has grown his hair out over the summer; it’s about the same length as Derek’s now, soft-looking and a milder, richer shade of brown than the buzz cut had been. It complements his eyes. Stiles tends to run late in the mornings, forgets to use styling gel more often than not, so usually his hair looks like he’s just rolled out of bed and scratched at it sleepily before yawning his way to the nearest coffee machine. He manages to maintain this look all day long because he won’t stop running his hands through his hair when he’s thinking – both hands at the same time, if Derek’s unlucky. Derek is having a tough enough time here without having to watch Stiles’ slender fingers probe the back of his head, fingertips sliding thoughtfully through the soft locks, muscles standing out against thin, hairy, coarse-skinned wrists.

“Stop that,” Derek orders through gritted teeth. Stiles drops his hand. “Form groups of three. Stiles, we’re doing trust falls whether you like it or not. They’re a great trust-building group exercise, and—”

“You lifted that line straight off Wikipedia,” Stiles laments, stepping as far away from Scott as possible. “This is completely ridiculous. There isn’t even any scientific evi—”

“I couldn’t be any less interested in what you have to say, so shut it,” Derek says. He lets himself plop backward into the armchair that had been in the loft when he rented it, wincing at the cloud of dust that rises around him and the coil springs that prod painfully into his lower back. “C’mon, guys, get moving. I don’t have all day.”

“Why?” Jackson mutters from the other side of the room. “You got fairies to fight?”

“Or maybe another Kanima,” Lydia shoots back sweetly. Jackson glares at her.

The pack divides itself in three groups – Scott, Isaac, and Jackson; Lydia, Allison, and Peter (Derek contemplates intervening but decides to let that train wreck itself); Erica, Boyd, and Stiles – and starts the exercise. Scott and Erica drop backward into their pack mates’ arms without hesitation on their first try. Boyd manages on the second. Though it takes Isaac and Jackson a number of tries, eventually they too succeed. Peter does a perfect trust fall, but Lydia and Allison don’t catch him and he hits the ground with a loud _crunch_ and a cry of pain. (Whether it’s an accident or not is debatable; Allison gasps, “I’m so sorry,” whereas Lydia is too overcome by laughter to say anything.)

Stiles is the only one who doesn’t manage to complete a single trust fall. He tries, but every time Derek can tell by the tense slope of his shoulders and the look on his face that it’s not going to work – and sure enough, Stiles keeps aborting his fall, windmilling his arms or taking a step back, glancing apologetically at his friends. “Oh, come on, Stiles!” Erica yells out after the so-manieth failed attempt. They’ve been at it for too long; everyone is growing bored, restless.

“Okay, that’s enough for today,” Derek intervenes. Jackson lets out an obnoxiously loud sigh of relief. Scott, bouncing on the balls of his feet, asks, “Derek, can we order pizza?”

“No. We had pizza yesterday.”

“But—”

“Go get groceries,” Derek says, reaching into his back pocket and torpedoing his credit card at Scott’s face. Scott catches it easily. “Healthy food _only_. Also, we’re out of milk. You can take the Camaro.”

“Sure thing, boss.” Scott salutes him and threads his fingers through Allison’s, who motions for Lydia to come, who digs her nails into Jackson’s forearm and drags him along. Derek turns toward the pack members left in the room. “Guys?”

“Don’t be too hard on him,” Erica tells Derek as she stalks past him with Isaac and Boyd in tow. Derek nods once. He redirects his gaze toward Peter, who sighs and rolls his eyes. “I guess I’ll go amuse myself elsewhere.”

As soon as the door falls closed behind Peter, Derek can hear Stiles’ heartbeat pick up. His own pulse quickens in concord. He closes his eyes for a second, opens them, turns around. “So?”

Stiles is leaning against the wall, hands in the front pocket of his hoodie. “‘So’ what?” he says hotly, crossing his legs at the ankle. His shoulders are drawn tight. “I told you, trust falls are not my thing. Sorry for, like, undermining your alpha powers, or whatever.”

“That’s not what this is about,” Derek says.

“It isn’t?”

The curve of Stiles’ mouth is very distracting. Derek is glad they didn’t train outside today. Sometimes, when he pushes his pack hard, makes them run for miles or lift weights until in the end even the werewolves crumble with exhaustion, Stiles defiantly clocks out before anyone else does, flops into the grass with his knees spread and his chest heaving. Sweat will be pooling in the little hollow at the center of his upper lip, just a few beads of sweat, and Derek’s knees will feel loose and weak with how badly he wants to reach out and rub them away with the pad of his thumb, or, preferably, use his tongue to lick away the sweat, lick into Stiles’ mouth. How badly he wants to push forward to slot in-between Stiles’ obscenely parted thighs, press down.

Derek shakes his head and look away. “Why don’t you trust your friends?” he asks.

Stiles lets out a burst of almost hysterical-sounding laughter. “Well that’s fucking rich, coming from you. Why don’t _I_ trust my friends? Why don’t _you?_ ”

“Why would I have to trust your friends?” Derek asks in confusion.

“Why would you— God-fucking- _damnit_ , Derek!” Stiles roars, pushing himself away from the wall and into Derek’s space. Derek involuntarily takes a step backward but Stiles keeps going until their upper bodies are almost touching. One of his hands fists into Derek’s henley. His eyes are dark, angry slits. “Fuck! You’re the most infuriating, hypocritical, clueless fucking _asshole_ I’ve ever met.” He punctuates every word with a slap on Derek’s chest. It doesn’t hurt but Derek feels himself wincing every time.

Stiles isn’t done yet. “I trust my friends fine,” he spits into Derek’s face. “Do you hear me? I trust them _fine_. It’s me that’s the problem, _I_ ’m afraid, I’m goddamn fucking _terrified_ , pretty much all the time, but at least I admit that, at least I acknowledge that’s my problem! What about you, Derek? Huh? What about you? After all these months of training and fighting and hanging out and so-called bonding and you pretending to be the fucking _leader_ of this _pack_ , can you say you trust any of us? Can you say you like being around us, _any_ of us, even a little bit?”

It’s weird. Normally in situations like these, Derek’s instinctive reaction is to lash out, to tear into the aggressor with his teeth, remove the threat by becoming it. Now, though, he feels the overwhelming urge _not_ to do any of that – to give in, to deflate, to run or maybe stay. He doesn’t know what exactly it is he wants. It’s confusing, upsetting. The words he eventually manages to choke out are, “You’re being out of line.” His voice sounds nothing like his own.

Stiles stares him straight in the eye. “Right,” he says after a while, very calmly. ( _He knows he’s won_ , Derek thinks, and oddly enough that realization doesn’t make him mad.) “Sorry about that, oh almighty alpha.”

And he leaves too.

 

* * *

 

Scott doesn’t come back with groceries, or even with pizza. He doesn’t come back at all. No one comes back. Derek doesn’t panic.

He’s still not panicking when it’s two hours later and Boyd is calling him. (Boyd _never_ calls him. It’s always Erica, or Isaac. Never Boyd.) “What’s wrong?” Derek asks, shouldering into his leather jacket and frantically searching for his car keys – but not panicking – as he awaits an answer. “Boyd?”

For a few seconds he hears nothing but mumbled voices in the background. His heart rate spikes. “Boyd?” Derek says, again.

“It’s Erica,” a voice finally answers him. “I forgot my phone at ho- _OH MY GOD!_ ” Her high-pitched squeal goes straight to the pit of Derek’s stomach, and all right, he’s panicking now. “Erica, what’s going on?” he asks, clutching his phone with both hands as he speaks into it. “Tell me where you are, tell me what’s wrong, tell me— God, where the _fuck_ are my car keys…”

“We’ve got your keys,” Erica says calmly. She doesn’t sound like she’s in mortal danger at all. “You told Scott he could borrow your car, remember?”

Now he’s just confused. “What’s going _on?_ Where are you guys?”

“At Deaton’s,” Erica says, and Derek momentarily panics again until she follows up with, “He’s got kittens!”

“What,” Derek says.

“He called Scott while we were at the store,” Erica explains patiently. “He needed help with something, so we went over, and there’s a whole litter of kittens and Derek, they’re so _cute_ , you should come too, Stiles is—”

“Stiles is there?” Derek interrupts her.

“Everyone’s here, even Peter. They’re climbing all over him like he’s the best thing since sliced bread, it’s so _cute_ , Derek, you have to come, even Lydia has hearts in her eyes, though that might have more to do with Peter—”

There’s heated yelling in the background. Derek can distinguish Lydia’s voice, Jackson’s voice, Peter’s voice. He sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose. “Fine. I’ll come.”

“Kittens, Derek!” Erica yells, and hangs up.

 

* * *

 

It’s a long walk from Derek’s loft to the animal clinic. He’d run, but he kind of likes the cool sense of clarity the falling evening gives him. When he arrives, he feels calm, determined.

Erica lets him in through the back door and promptly pushes something small and warm into his hands. “ _Look at it_ ,” she commands. Derek does. The kitten is black-furred and impossibly tiny, its eyes still blue and watery. It’s opening its miniscule mouth in a pink, soundless mewl. Derek tries to say something, but words fail him. He carefully strokes down the kitten’s back with one fingertip.

“I know,” Erica says meaningfully. “C’mon, let’s get her back before her mom misses her.”

 

His pack is huddled around a fort of blankets and pillows on the floor, going ‘oh’ and ‘ah’ and pulling lovey-dovey faces of the kind usually reserved for communication by Scott and Allison. Derek very, very gently lowers the kitten Erica gave him onto the blanket. The mother cat immediately swoops in to take it away. She carries it into a corner and starts to lick the baby clean.

“This is the cutest thing I have ever seen in my _life_ ,” Allison announces, and four or five heads bob up and down in agreement with her. Derek tries to shuffle away from cat central without lifting his feet.

“There’s four of ’em,” Stiles tells him.

Derek stops moving. “What?”

Stiles tilts his head back to look up at Derek, the line of his throat long and inviting. Derek swallows. “There are four kittens,” Stiles explains. “And they’re currently all there.” He points toward where the mother is grooming her babies. “So you don’t have to be afraid of stepping on one or anything.”

“I wasn’t,” Derek says defensively. He stalks over to where Stiles is sitting, lifting his feet with every step to make a point. When he arrives, he doesn’t really know what to do with himself. It feels awkward, being the only one standing, so he crouches down. Stiles, like everyone else, is focused wholly on the adorable bunch of kittens. It makes it easier for Derek to get himself together, to mentally rehearse the action plan he’d decided on during his walk to Deaton’s clinic.

One of the kittens escapes from under its mother’s tongue. Everyone coos and reaches for it. “Don’t,” Lydia says authoritatively. “Let it do what it wants, for God’s sake.”

The kitten wanders around the blanket on unsteady paws. One of its siblings joins it, their little heads bumping together. Even Peter is aahww-ing. Derek looks at Stiles, at the way he’s sitting, cross-legged with his hands folded neatly in his lap; at the brightness in his eyes, the birthmarks on his cheek and down his neck, the one corner of his mouth that’s curling into a smile. Calmly, matter-of-factly, Derek thinks _I’m in love with you_.

“Stiles,” he says, softly.

Stiles doesn’t look up. Nobody looks up. Everyone’s too enamored with the kittens.

“Stiles,” Derek says, again.

“What, Derek?” Stiles throws an impatient glance over his shoulder. “What could possibly be more important at this moment than these stupidly adorable little balls of fur?”

Derek swallows. He should say it now that he’s finally got Stiles’ attention— but Stiles is looking away again, murmuring, “Babies!” He cradles one of the tiny kittens in his palms, holds it up to his face. It mewls. Derek looks at the way its wiry little tail brushes against the bridge of Stiles’ nose. His chest floods with warmth. He hears himself say, “I trust you.”

Stiles’ head snaps upward again. “What?”

“I trust you,” Derek repeats, quietly. “You. I trust _you_.”

From the corner of his eye he notices Boyd looking at him.

Stiles lowers the kitten into his lap. He stays very still. “Is this some other team-building exercise you plucked off Wikipedia? Because—”

Derek wipes his hands on his jeans, moves to stand up. This was stupid. He was stupid to believe this would work. No plan of his ever works out. “You know what, never mind.”

He leaves the room, careful not to step on anything that breathes. His chest hurts. He reaches the front door, but it’s locked. “Damnit,” Derek whispers, balling his hand into a fist.

“Did you mean it?”

Derek turns around. “Yeah,” he says, watching the way Stiles’ throat works as he swallows, eyes flickering up to meet Derek’s. “I think so.”

Stiles nods. “Okay,” he says, with a little nod.

“Okay?” Derek asks. He meets Stiles’ gaze again, tries to see if Stiles knows what this means, what he means. His heart is beating fast. Stiles’ is too, he notices.

Stiles shrugs, half-smiles. “Yeah.” He runs a hand through his hair, then the other. Derek swallows. Stiles smiles again, reaches one of his hands out, palm upturned. Derek takes it.

**Author's Note:**

> I saw [this](http://asourwolf.tumblr.com/post/28520812553/i-want-more-of-these-two-i-want-deaton-to-become), and also [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2rELs4jl64k), and then somehow this happened.
> 
> Come hang out with me [on Tumblr](http://coffeeinallcaps.tumblr.com).


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